Embryonic a-ha album by Bridges to be released for the first time later this year

This is the cover to the first Bridges album

Paul Waaktaar-Savoy confirms the news to SDE

The second album recorded in by Norwegian rock band Bridges is going to be given an official release on vinyl later this year. Along with a few other musicians, a-ha songwriter and guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy was in the group with future a-ha bandmate Magne Furuholmen. Morten Harket would see Bridges play live and with Paul and Magne the trio would head to London (in Paul’s words) “to become pop stars”.
The album is called Poem and was recorded but never mixed, never mind released. Only 1000 copies of the first self-titled album pressed locally on the band’s own Våkenatt label, so there is very little official Bridges product out there!

Speaking to me backstage at the O2 in London, before the final date of a-ha’s acoustic tour Paul revealed the reissue plans…

Paul Waaktaar-Savoy: One vinyl book that’s coming out is the unreleased Bridges album…

SDE: That’s interesting!

Paul: Yeah…so that’s going to be a big to do, for a while.

SDE: Is that planned for this year?

Paul: Yes, that’s planned for this year. We got the 16-track tape and I mixed it and we’ve got tons of cool pictures, and old reviews and it actually sounds pretty good. And it’s got old songs… the early version of Scoundrel Days on it, the first version of Soft Rains Of April and a lot of other stuff that are actually very… I’d re-record them now, if I could.

SDE: Will you keep it just as the album as it was, or will there be any bonus material?

Paul: Well, it’s all a bonus! It never came out… because the money we were supposed to use to mix that album… we went to London to become pop stars. It’s never been mixed it’s all just sitting there on a multi-track.

The full interview with Paul will be published on SDE next week. If you’d like to know more about Bridges, there is a great feature by Barry Page on The Electricity Club website.

27 responses to Embryonic a-ha album by Bridges to be released for the first time later this year

I get that there are a number of reasons why a vinyl LP would be their choice for the primary format of a release like this, not the least of which being that nobody likes having to squint at photos and articles in CD-booklet size, but I’m hoping there’ll be a variant that comes with a bonus CD format, or at least a digital download.

Standard Blu-rays debut in a combo package with a DVD and digital copy; 4K and 3D Blu-rays all come with a standard Blu-ray and/or digital copies. The logic translates to audio in that some people only intend to have one media format player, other people aspire to a particular type of player but don’t have it yet, while still others may have various hardware formats but haven’t got them all set up, and after the first few plays, most people want to be able to listen to some or all of an album away from home. By 2018—especially considering the price premium generally charged for vinyl now—vinyl should come with a CD and/or a digital copy. (Amazon often offers digital copies with album purchases whether on vinyl or CD, but you can only use it if you’re able to buy domestically.)

Barring that, perhaps Paul would consider a Super Deluxe Edition packaging both Bridges albums on CD in a book format? I’m interested in hearing them both and I’d love to support the release(s) if it were something I’d actually be able to listen to!

Was completely unaware of this or the other Bridges LP. Is the other one available? If not I hope they will reissue that one too at some point. Judging by some of the track lengths on the debut there is a more proggy side to this. Not surprising as such as A-ha do have prog elements. They are a late entry New Romantic band really and NR is likd of prog-lite isn’t it?

You can get it on youtube, as single tracks probably. But a-ha covered a Bridges song Sox of the Fox for their unplugged cd/dvd. Was great. I’d love if the 4 members of Bridges got together for a once off concert, maybe do a photoshoot and recreate some of the shots they did as a band before and also maybe invite Morten on to sing on one track at the gig. I should be in charge of promotion!

So they have multitrack tapes, unmixed… That calls for a multi channel mix on bluray. A Nice bundle with the LP, I would say, along with a stand alone release.
If Paul meets Paul again, a little suggestion could be made….

I always find with this kind of thing it depends on when you first hear it. It kinda reminds me of London and Dilemma by Streetband. I was a mad Paul Young fan and bought both albums in 1983 (from Reddingtons in Birmingham). I lived and loved those two albums playing them on rotation with Q-tips and No Parlez. If you first heard them both in 2018 you would give it 30 seconds and turn it off. However if you played them in the early 80s or late 70s you will have a massive place in your heart for them. I am sure the huge a-ha fans will feel the same about Bridges as I do about Streetband. If you first listened in 1985 or earlier it’ll probably mean everything to you.

Ouch.
The basis of the songs might have some common ground but songs change as do the writers and many a song on many an album is a re-working of something that might have appeared or been written 5 years earlier. But they are invariably different. Even demos written a couple of months before a release can sound so very different as different producers and engineers get to grips with the evolving sound of the band.

I saw Q-tips a couple of times. Supporting the Who at the Rainbow and I think at a festival in Ireland. I was on my “overseas adventure” and worked at a pub a few doors from Heaven nightclub. I never knew they had bands playing there !

I saw the Q-tips by accident as they were playing at my sister’s uni on the day I just happened to be visiting her, I was only 13, and had no idea who they were as I just tagged along. To my dying shame I paid them little or no attention as they were not Mike Oldfield or Kate Bush who were the only people I cared about at that point. After becoming a monster Paul Young fan after that I was kicking myself for ages.

The odd thing was that I also saw Paul King by accident at the same time as he was leading the Reluctant Stereotypes and I had no idea who they were either. I came to love King a few years later too.